Community Resilience

Assessing and addressing climate impacts on community health, education, employment, and resilience

Community resilience is a measure of the sustained ability of a community to utilize available resources to respond to, withstand, and recover from adverse situations. The need for physically and economically healthy, informed, socially connected, and prepared communities is even more central as climate change disrupts interconnected human and natural systems. RAND takes an inclusive approach to community resilience in the context of climate change, looking at topics ranging from disaster risk reduction and recovery, environmental determinants of health (air and water pollution, extreme heat), food systems, and environmental justice. In so doing, RAND has implemented and evaluated community resilience-building activities worldwide and identified opportunities to integrate partners across sectors in public health and emergency preparedness, climate mitigation, infrastructure protection, education and workforce development, and the development of economic recovery programs.

Featured Research and Projects

  • This combination of Sept. 11, 2005 and July 29, 2015 aerial photos show the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans flooded by Hurricane Katrina and the same area a decade later. Before Katrina, the Lower Ninth Ward was a working-class and predominantly African-American neighborhood just outside the city's historic center. Photos by David J. Phillip, Gerald Herbert / AP Photo

    The Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities Mitigation Grant Program

    Natural disasters have become more frequent and destructive, with the damage from disasters affecting some communities—most notably, low-income and disadvantaged communities—more than others. Hazard risk mitigation could reduce disruption and damage, and equity issues are important in helping communities' mitigation efforts.

  • 7d, Maria, azul, blue, blue tarps, canon, condado, damage, fema, hato rey, hurricane maria, pr, puerto rico, recovery, san juan, sea, tarps

    Supporting Puerto Rico's Disaster Recovery Planning

    In response to Hurricanes Irma and Maria in 2017, the Homeland Security Operational Analysis Center (HSOAC) supported development of Puerto Rico’s economic and disaster-recovery plan. Researchers collected and analyzed damage and needs information from across Puerto Rico, and developed and costed recovery actions that addressed multiple areas of need.

  • Pedestrians walk across the Roberto Clemente Bridge in Pittsburgh

    OnePGH: Supporting Development of Pittsburgh's Resilience Strategy

    RAND partnered with the city of Pittsburgh to develop the city's first city-wide Resilience Strategy. Known as OnePGH, it's a comprehensive plan to address the current and future challenges that confront the city and its residents.

  • Mid-Atlantic Regional Integrated Science and Assessments

    Helping Mid-Atlantic communities become more resilient to a changing climate through improved data, place-based decision support, and public engagement.

  • Members of a FEMA Disaster Survivor Assistance crew walk door to door to help residents of Houma apply for assistance after Hurricane Ida. Photo by Julie Joseph / FEMA

    When Disaster Management Agencies Create Disaster Risk

    Disaster management agencies are mandated to reduce risk for the populations that they serve. Yet, inequities in how they function may result in their activities creating disaster risk, particularly for already vulnerable and marginalized populations.

  • Digital network connection lines of Sathorn intersection, Bangkok Downtown, Thailand. Photo by tampatra / Adobe Stock

    Developing Metrics and Scoring Procedures to Support Mitigation Grant Program Decisionmaking

    The Federal Emergency Management Agency commissioned development of metrics that can inform decisionmaking for awarding predisaster mitigation grants. This report establishes three lines of effort for analysis: indirect benefits, applicant institutional capability, and community resilience.

  • Forest fire, several hectares of pine trees burned during the dry season in June 2013 in Tele-Samosir Lake Toba (Danau Toba) North Sumatra (Sumatera Utara) Indonesia, photo by Ares/Adobe Stock

    Indonesian Fires and Haze

    Fires in Indonesia contribute to severe air pollution that causes public health, environmental, and economic degradation across Indonesia and across equatorial Asia. What are the drivers of fire activity in Indonesia? And what are some the health impacts of air pollution exposure?